The 4th Turn: May 29, 2025
~ By Tom Boggie
C’mon. What’s the deal with this weather?
Don’t the weather gods, or rain gods, or whatever they are, know that, in order to keep readers of The 4th Turn entertained, I need Albany-Saratoga Speedway racing on a Friday night? I saw somewhere on one of the local news channels last week that, dating back to last November, there has been some type of precipitation on every weekend since. Are you getting that? Some sort of rain, snow, sleet, hail, cats and dogs, whatever, on at least one Saturday or Sunday every week since!
What am I going to write about? Stewart Friesen and Matt Sheppard winning Super DIRTcar Series races, Friesen at Weedsport Sunday and Sheppard at Thunder Mountain Monday? Not much news value there. That story has been written numerous times. The only thing newsworthy there was that Friesen broke a right rear shock after setting the fast time in time trials and had to be towed back to the pits. He later inherited the lead when Alex Payne, who had been out front, suffered a flat tire on lap 76 of the 100-lapper.
Andy Bachetti winning the big block feature at Lebanon Valley? Again, where’s the news value? Since Ken Tremont Jr. retired, Bachetti has become the man to beat at the Valley, and he’s got the talent and the equipment to be up front every week.
Which leaves me with giving 4th Turn space to the guys who don’t win.
Not a bad idea. Let’s start with Mike Mahaney.
Mahaney finished second to Friesen at Weedsport in the Heroes Remembered 100. Mahaney has been having a good, consistent season, with solid finishes at both Airborne Park on Thursday nights and Albany-Saratoga on Fridays. That second place on Sunday at Weedsport was his third runner-up effort this season, and his seventh top-five in 14 starts.
After the race at Weedsport, Mahaney told a member of the DIRTcar public relations staff, “We seem to be timing well and running good in the heats. We just have to get it done in the feature.”
Peter Britten, the defending modified champion at Albany-Saratoga, finished second to Sheppard on Monday at Thunder Mountain. They started on the front row, Sheppard beat Britten to the first turn and they stayed first and second for the rest of the 77 laps in The Natural 77, a tribute to Dale Planke.
Britten picked up his first win of the 2025 season at Volusia County in the DIRTcar Nationals in February, but until the last month, has struggled. During one four-race stretch, he finished 27th at Port Royal, 17th at New Egypt, 28th in the SDS Anniversary Special at Albany-Saratoga and 27th in the Flying Farmer 31, also at Albany-Saratoga.
He’s already made 19 starts in 2025, but has finished in the top five only five times.
Britten also talked to the DIRTcar PR staff after the race, and discussed the one-groove surface, saying, “I wasn’t going to be the guy who pulled out of line and got freight-trained.”
While we’re discussing good runs, let’s throw in Brian Calabrese’s third-place finish in the Northeast Crate Nationals last Monday at Devil’s Bowl Speedway. Donovan Lussier, easily the hottest sportsman driver in the Northeast this season, won the 100-lapper and the top prize of $5,000, with Chad Edwards second in the John Kollar Motorsports 10%. Calabrese, who started 15th, got $1,200 for finishing third, which should put some new tires on his car on Friday night at Albany-Saratoga.
I keep waiting for Jeff Sheely to win another race. Sheely has been racing modifieds for over 30 years now and hasn’t been in victory lane since 2021, when he chalked up career win No. 6 at Thunder Mountain. Sheely has three career wins at Thunder Mountain, two at Afton and one at Glen Ridge Motorsports Park. His first victory came at Afton on Aug. 25, 1995.
He’s finished in the top five on four different occasions at Albany-Saratoga, with two fourths and two fifths. But one of those finishes was a fourth on Sept. 29, 1991, when the late C.J. Richards scraped off all the clay to run on the original asphalt surface. Sheely finished fourth in the third of the Triple 30s that day, but the final payoffs were determined by overall finishes, so technically, Sheely wasn’t in the top five overall.
ANOTHER RAINOUT AT THE RIDGE
By the time Glen Ridge Motorsports Park runs its first modified feature of 2025, it’s going to be June.
Glen Ridge tried to get in its opener last Sunday, but after running all the heat races and two slingshot features, rain washed out the rest of the card.
Now, most promoters would be climbing the walls after five straight rainouts. But not Ray Sefrin. Granted, he’d love to be racing on Sundays, but he’s really not losing anything if he doesn’t. He’s got a very successful business, and co-promoting Glen Ridge with Butch Hazzard is basically a “side hustle.”
Anyone who has been following Glen Ridge for a while remembers the days when cars sponsored by Mike Parillo and Sefrin were dominant at the track. In those days, Dave Constantino was behind the wheel of the Sefrin’s West End Towing and Repair car, while Tim Hartman Jr. was wheeling the Parillo Services car.
Sefrin and Parillo took over the lease at Glen Ridge in June of 2017 and switched the track from Friday nights to Sundays, and also brought in Hazzard as part of the management team at that time.
But Sefrin and Parillo still loved the racing part of the business.
In 2018, Constantino won 11 races for Sefrin, while Hartman Jr. put the Parillo Services car in victory lane five times. And Hartman Jr. also finished second to Constantino eight times. Those two cars were so dominant that a bounty was put out for anyone can beat them, and on Sept. 9, Calabrese finally ended the stranglehold Constantino and Hartman Jr. had on the top two positions. With the bounty, Calabrese earned $1,800 for his victory (Hartman Jr. was second) that night.
Parillo got out of the promoting business in 2019, with Sefrin and Hazzard, a former crew member on A.J. Romano’s cars, now sharing the duties.
The current season is Sefrin’s ninth as a promoter at Glen Ridge, making him the longest-tenured person in that position in the history of the track.
And for the record, this isn’t the first time Glen Ridge has had five postponements to begin the season. It also happened in 2016, when Pete Demitraszek was the promoter.
AROUND THE TRACKS
Another busy night is on tap at Albany-Saratoga on Friday. The modifieds will run for $3,000 to win, and the track will hold the second leg of the DiCarlo Auto Body 358 Shootout Series. Sportsman will be competing for $1,060 to win, through sponsorship from Emerick Associates, while limited sportsman will be chasing $500 to win, with the extra money coming from Burch Motors.
Kolby Schroder, who recorded his first career win at Albany-Saratoga on May 2, took a wild ride in the big block feature last Saturday at Lebanon Valley. On lap 11, Schroder and Brett Haas made contact coming out of the second turn, breaking a radius rod on Schroder’s car. No longer in control of the modified, Schroder slammed into the wall at the back entrance of the pits and flipped over, destroying his car.
Not only was the car destroyed, but the impact also broke a head on the motor.
As a result, Schroder will be taking a couple of weeks off at the Valley to regroup, and will concentrate on his program at Albany-Saratoga. He’s currently fourth in points, only seven behind leader Felix Roy.
The post The 4th Turn: May 29, 2025 appeared first on Albany-Saratoga Speedway.